HumanistLife

Alternatives to Religion: A collaborative project

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by Nicky Hilton

Irreplaceable humanist archives, are being rediscovered as part the Alternatives to Religion Project. The material, described by the National Archives as having the potential to ‘transform research and understanding of alternatives to religion’ includes items created by the British Humanist Association (BHA), Conway Hall Ethical Society (CHES) and the National Secular Society (NSS). The current phase of the project is funded by the National Cataloguing Grant Programme and will see historic material from all three organisations catalogued, preserved and made publicly available.

As the professional Archivist implementing this phase of the project, I’ve come across a huge array of items since I started work on the collections in April. The archives consist of official records, such as minutes, deeds and annual reports, as well as campaign material, plans, correspondence and photographs.

My favourite items from the archives are those which convey the changes to thinking of those pioneering agnostics and Unitarians who established the Ethical Movement and laid the foundations of Humanism.

Tracing the origins of Conway Hall Ethical Society through the archives, the researcher will soon encounter minutes and ledgers of Parliament Court Chapel, Artillery Lane. The records evoke a time when this progressive East London congregation (led by William Johnson Fox from 1817), were still navigating the boundaries between dissenting religion, agnosticism and humanism. The congregation met from approximately 1807 until 1824 and although Christian, the congregation were non-conformists, and described in some reports as Universalist. A natural leader, Fox gradually led his congregation away from Christianity to rationalism and presided over the move in 1824 from Parliament Court Chapel to the purpose built South Place Chapel (near Moorgate Station). The official minutes from this time convey a simple shift away from describing the attendees as ‘the congregation’ to the word ‘members’. From this point, the members of South Place Chapel continued to move away from established religion, but it was the arrival of another charismatic leader, Dr Stanton Coit in 1888 which finally saw a complete break from Christianity. The archives record that Coit was appointed Lecturer (no longer Minister) and presided over the change of the organisation’s name from Chapel, to Religious Society, and finally to Ethical Society.

In the British Humanist Association Archive there is further evidence of this gradual, but confident break from religion. As well as leading South Place Ethical Society, Dr Coit was a member of the Ethical Union (forerunner of the BHA) and his vision for the Ethical Movement created some of the most interesting items in the archives. For example, Coit’s scrapbook reveals his unwavering commitment to relieving the plight of the Victorian working classes, not through salvation, but by education and self improvement. His Neighbourhood Guilds, a type of trade union based on locality rather than employment, attracted international attention because of the socialist undertones and atheism. This desire to support people within an ethical framework also led Coit to establish the unique Ethical Church at Bayswater. Occupying a former Methodist Chapel, Coit saw his non-religious church as a template for an inclusive, secular, Church of England. Photographs of the interior of the building show the lectern from where Coit gave his Sunday lectures. Behind him stood an engraving which could easily be taken from a modern work of Humanism: “Thanks to the human heart by which we live”.

The material mentioned here is just a tiny fragment of the total collection. These archives are a treasure trove of humanist, secular and ethical activities, with more untold stories waiting to be uncovered by researchers. Cataloguing of CHES and BHA archives is continuing, and the records of the NSS are due to be started in the new year. Highlights of the Alternatives to Religion project so far are displayed on the project blog at: http://alt2religion.tumblr.com/   which is updated weekly. You can also search the partial BHA catalogue at: http://www.bishopsgate.org.uk/Library/Library-Catalogue ; and the partial SPES catalogue at: http://www.conwayhall.org.uk/catalogue

Nicky Hilton is the Archivist for the Alternatives to Religion Project.

Countering pessimism

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[W]e see, surrounding the narrow raft illumined by the flickering light of human comradeship, the dark ocean on whose rolling waves we toss for a brief hour; from the great night without, a chill blast breaks in upon our refuge; all the loneliness of humanity amid hostile forces is concentrated upon the individual soul, which must struggle alone, with what of courage it can command, against the whole weight of a universe that cares nothing for its hopes and fears.
From “A Free Man’s Worship” by Bertrand Russell

How full is this glass?

How full is this glass? Vir Narain muses on consolation and optimism.

 

Bertrand Russell was a courageous and defiant man who would not hesitate to discard a comforting belief – perhaps even if he suspected that it was true.  Along with other humanists, he wanted people to have the courage to give up the comforting religious myths about a caring and loving God and face life as it was.  As Narsingh Narain said: “Our ancestors solved the problem of pessimism (in so far as they did solve it) by convincing themselves about a future life guaranteed by the existence of a merciful and all-powerful God.”   So “… belief in gods produced an unintended result by restoring that optimism which is natural to life but had suffered disturbance as a byproduct of man’s mental evolution.  It was more necessary to regain that optimism than to achieve external results.  A life weighed down with chronic fear and anxiety would lack the spirit and the power to face and survive misfortunes.  In comparison the lessening of the severity of the misfortunes themselves was not so important.”  Russell conceded that: “… belief in God still serves to humanise the world of nature, and to make men feel that physical forces are their allies.”

It is very important, but practically impossible, to avoid using words such as hostile, friendly, pitiless, uncaring etc. when discussing the relationship of man with nature.  It is perhaps best not to attempt it here.  Russell talks of “humanity amid hostile forces”.  Carl Sagan says:  “The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent.”  Narsingh Narain says: “Let us have the courage to accept the fact that the universe does not care for us, for the human race or for life.”

I shall argue that there is an element of exaggeration here; perhaps as a reaction against all the religious nonsense about a loving and caring God.  If humanity was surrounded by hostile forces, as suggested by Russell, it would not have survived even for a nano-second.  The anthropic (a needlessly anthropocentric misnomer) principle cannot be lightly dismissed. The very existence of life shows that the laws of nature are pro-life which, of course, entails being pro-death as well.

“The philosophy of nature” says Russell “must not be unduly terrestrial; for it, the earth is merely one of the smaller stars of the Milky Way.  It would ridiculous to warp the philosophy of nature in order to bring out results that are pleasing to the tiny parasites of this insignificant planet.” (Emphasis added).  But these tiny parasites are, as far as we know now, the only living beings in this unimaginably vast universe. And size is not everything. Isaac Asimov tells us: “Man’s three pound brain is the most complex and orderly arrangement of matter known in the universe.” In any case, we cannot escape being terrestrial when dealing with the relationship of life with nature, with the philosophy of life. The Philosophy of Life is a subset of the Philosophy of Nature.

According to Russell, “Optimism and pessimism, as cosmic philosophies, show the same naïve humanism; the great world, so far as we know it from the philosophy of nature, is neither good nor bad, and it is not concerned to make us happy or unhappy.  All such philosophies spring from self-importance, and are best corrected by a little astronomy.” Even if optimism and pessimism are ‘cosmic’ philosophies: they have an exclusively human context and deal with human attributes.  A little biology – rather than a little astronomy – might be more helpful in understanding the relationship between life and nature.

The astonishing facts of evolution which has produced so many, and so diverse, near-perfect forms of life; the incredibly complex immune systems which are constantly fighting to protect each individual   creature from infectious disease; the delicately poised and infinitely complex ecosystem which holds these life-forms in balance and, above all, the miraculous emergence of creatures which are capable of abstract thought, all point to the life-promoting processes of nature. The pessimistic view that nature is hostile or indifferent to life as such is not supported by the facts of science.  Also, this view promotes an unhealthy man-versus-nature mindset: nature is to be conquered or subdued.

Narsingh Narain quotes Colin Wilson as saying: “… the task of Humanism is to attempt to destroy pessimism wherever is appears”. This is an important task which is becoming more difficult with the passage of time. Increasing urbanisation and industrialisation – among other conditions of modern living – are leading to unprecedented levels of angst and alienation.  Presenting a needlessly gloomy picture of nature does not help.

As the half-full/ half-empty glass cliché shows, pessimism and optimism represent two mutually exclusive attitudes which are not necessarily fact-dependent. Only a robust and positive attitude in the face of adversity can enable us to cope with the vicissitudes of human life. As Narsingh Narain says: “Let the tender-minded continue to hug the old delusions or invent new ones. For the tough-minded, stoicism is the only dignified answer.”  Iris Murdoch’s observation: “Anything that consoles is fake.” is largely true.   But the belief that nature supports life is not a consoling myth.  Even down to the level of the individual, as our immune system shows, nature is at work to preserve life up to a point.  Inevitably, it withdraws this support in the fullness of time. This shows nature’s triune character as creator, preserver and destroyer.

Even without the idea of an uncaring or hostile nature, the challenges to man’s fortitude are enormous.  If this idea no longer seems to conform to the facts as we know them now, it should be discarded.  Homo Sapiens must guard against becoming Homo Ingratus

A humanist perspective on the “Common Ground” conference

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“Common Ground: A Conversation Between Religious Believers and Humanists on Values and Ethics” was a conference in Glasgow in November co-sponsored by the UK and US Provinces of the (Catholic) Xaverian Missionaries. Speakers included Chris Stedman, author of Faitheist – How an Atheist Found Common Ground with the Religious and Assistant Humanist Chaplain at Harvard University. Jeremy Rodell is Chair of South West London Humanists and was one of seven delegates from the BHA and the Humanist Society of Scotland. They also included Rory Fenton, AHS President and the BHA’s Dialogue Officer.

Here’s Jeremy’s input to the “Common Ground” conference blog.

The “Common Ground” conference: a humanist perspective

As a humanist living in London, it was a bit of a surprise to get an email from the British Humanist Association asking if I would like to attend a conference in Scotland organised by Catholic missionaries. I’m glad I said “yes”.

This was a bold initiative by the Xavierian Missionaries to find “Common Ground” across one of the most important fault-lines of western society, especially here in the UK. I did not need convincing of the value interfaith dialogue involving humanists – I was already involved in it. But I left the conference convinced both that more could be done and that what we’re doing today could be done better.

The conference itself was, of course, an example of dialogue in action. I had never met a missionary before and, if I’d thought about it at all, would probably have come up with the caricature of a Bible-bashing neo-colonialist. What I found were thoughtful people who had made major practical contributions to the lives of people in the countries where they’d lived – in one case helping to end a devastating civil war. That doesn’t make me more comfortable about Christian proselytization, but it certainly provides a more nuanced perspective. Equally, I don’t think many of the religious people present had met a humanist before. There were a lot of fascinating and enlightening conversations.

My main “takeaway” was that, at its core, this is all about human relationships. If people from different backgrounds know each other and have listened carefully enough to understand where the other person is coming from – and perhaps have worked together for a common cause – then it becomes almost impossible to demonise “The Other”. That doesn’t mean they will agree on everything. What Chris Stedman referred to as “Kumbaya” interfaith, where everyone loves one another and genuine differences are suppressed, has limited potential. But we were able to demonstrate at the end of the conference that, once trust has been established, it is possible to articulate conflicting views on controversial issues while maintaining mutual respect.

Chris Stedman, author of Fatheist, who spoke along with Jeremy Rodell

Chris Stedman, author of Faitheist, who spoke at the event.

 

However, we shouldn’t be naïve. There are people within almost all religion and belief communities who have no interest in dialogue – they know they’re right and at best want either to isolate themselves, or to argue, and at worst to impose their views by force. They’re just not interested in listening and understanding people they consider to be “the enemy”. On the other hand, there are people in these same communities who understand that we live in a plural world in which mutual understanding is essential for peace, and where it is often possible to find common ground with those with whom we disagree. We learned from Chris Stedman that Eboo Patel, the US-based founder of the Inter Faith Youth Corps, refers to the divide between these two types of people as the “Faith Line”.

Those who organise and turn up to a conference on dialogue between believers and the non-religious are, by definition, on the liberal side of the Faith Line. But the fact that we don’t directly reach the hard liners doesn’t invalidate the exercise. They can only be reached, or perhaps faced down, by more open-minded people from their own belief backgrounds – people on “our side” of the line. It is by dialogue that we can all become better informed and feel better supported in advocating the interfaith approach within our own communities.

So what does that mean in practice?

Firstly, we need to get past some of the issues of language. Humanists don’t really like the term “interfaith”, or “interfaith dialogue”, which sound excluding, as Humanism isn’t a faith. But we need a term for dialogue between people with differing religious and non-religious beliefs, and “interfaith” is very widely used. Humanists should not be afraid to use it too. But we need the help of religious people to ensure that it’s understood to cover “faith and belief” not just religion.

More significantly, the conference demonstrated a misunderstanding over the meaning of “secularism”. I understand it to mean a level playing field, in which people are free to follow their religious and non-religious beliefs and practices – provided they do not erode the freedom and rights of others – with no particular group or organisation having privileges over others. In a secular society, freedom of religion and belief is protected. Like most humanists, I think that’s a good idea. Unfortunately, too often the term has been used to mean “anti-religious”, not helped by the fact that there are some atheists who, as well as advocating secularism, would also like to see the end of religion. The result was that many of our religious colleagues at the conference thought that, when humanists say we want a secular society, we mean one in which there is no religion. It was something of an “ah-ha” moment when everyone realised that was not the case.

Secondly, “doing interfaith” needs to be more than sitting on a committee, useful though that may be. It needs to involve more people from different backgrounds getting to know each other, maybe in informal settings, through social media or – ideally – through shared community activity. That doesn’t necessarily mean creating a new organisation or activity, but rather finding something that is fun, stimulating and has a doable objective.

At the risk of gender stereotyping, it’s useful to be aware that men and women may come at interfaith, and especially the involvement of the non-religious, from different angles. Callum Brown’s academic analysis suggests that changes in women’s lives have been the main driver of the significant move away from religion in the UK since the 1960s. But he says that arguments about science and rationality have not played the key role here – “community” factors have been much more important. The implication for interfaith work is that the more cerebral type of interfaith dialogue about ideas may, on average, be more appealing to men than women, who may be more attracted by practical community activity. Both have a role to play.

Coming from the south of England, it was interesting to find that Scotland – which is probably less religiously diverse than London – seems to be way ahead in terms of official recognition of the importance of interfaith dialogue and inclusion of the non-religious, as well as providing practical help on how to make it work. “Belief in Dialogue” is an official publication by The Scottish Government providing a “good practice guide to religion and belief relations in Scotland”. Its introduction is written by Sister Isabel Smyth, Chair of the Scottish Working Group on Religion and Belief Relations, who was among the conference attendees. In it she links the need for dialogue back to the values of wisdom, justice, integrity and compassion which we saw inscribed on the Scottish Mace when the conference visited the Parliament in Edinburgh. These are shared human values – no humanist would disagree with them.

“Belief in Dialogue” is clear about the involvement of the non-religious: “The need to recognise the equal legitimacy of every community to exist in Scotland is enshrined as a human right, and by this we need to think about community in the broadest sense of the word. While most religious communities have established formal structures, non-religious communities and groups have considerably fewer formal structures but still need to be seen as communities in the sense that those who advocate such beliefs are bound by the beliefs they share.” It goes on to provide practical ways of building interfaith relationships which anyone can use. You can download it free from The Scottish Government website.

The rest of us would do well to steal its thinking.

 

Jeremy Rodell is Chair of South West London Humanists, the humanist representative on two local interfaith forums, and a humanist speaker for 3FF, an interfaith charity which provides panels of speakers from different religion and belief backgrounds to schools in London and elsewhere. He’s currently co-chairing a local dialogue between humanists and Catholics in Twickenham, following a major dispute about a new Catholic ‘faith’ school with exclusive admissions. If you want to know more, email chair@swlhumanists.org.uk.

Doctor Who: fifty years of Humanism

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Celebrating 50 years of Humanism: Matt Smith, David Tennant and guest star John Hurt, all playing the Doctor.

Celebrating 50 years of Humanism: Matt Smith, David Tennant and guest star John Hurt, all playing the Doctor.

 

Tonight is the airing of a Doctor Who special, The Day of the Doctor. Fans are celebrating the show’s fiftieth anniversary, and as well as lighting up TV screens around the world, the special is showing in cinemas around the UK in 3D.

It’s worth celebrating the show from another perspective, however. It’s one of the most humanist television shows of all time. In fact, at practically every turn up to now it has presented the philosophy of its title character, the Doctor, as an emphatically humanist one. If there’s one thing the Doctor values, it’s human life, and if there’s one thing he consistently stands in awe of, it’s human potential. He abhors superstition; he scorns pointless prejudices; he believes fervently in reason; he is sympathetic to the beliefs of others, but will not kowtow to them when a fundamental liberty is under threat.

The show began in 1963 as a children’s program with an educational mandate. A mysterious old miser known as the Doctor, played by William Hartnell, would take his granddaughter and her two schoolteachers back in time to visit the Earth’s history, as well as into the future and into outer space, using speculative fiction as a means to explore philosophical questions and scientific ideas.

Its second story, The Daleks, was a parable about the evils of Nazism. It gave birth to rich science fiction concepts which took the show into a bold new direction, and would go on to test better with audiences than the historical format of later serials such as The Aztecs. The Daleks produced a strong template for the show’s future, in which it would continue to delve into history, but never again lose the science fiction backdrop which led it to discuss bold themes and big ideas.

The Doctor is one of pop culture’s most popular atheists. Famous atheists on TV tend to play into negative stereotypes. They are either the curmudgeonly, misanthropic intellectual (Dr. Gregory House on House, Dr. Perry Cox on Scrubs) or the sanctimonious liberal douche (Brian Griffin on Family Guy, Kurt Hummel on Glee). But the Doctor, by contrast, has evolved into a life-affirming, swashbuckling hero who is adored by children everywhere.

To maintain the show’s longevity, it introduced the plot device where if the Doctor is fatally injured, his alien physiology can “regenerate,” creating a new body with new personality quirks and a different face. The mantle of the Doctor has been passed on officially to a dozen or so actors in the show’s history, with many other actors playing alternative versions or unofficial Doctors over the last half-century. Like no other character on TV, over fifty years we have seen his many sides. He has been a narcissist, a boor, a clown, a grump, a convincing portrayal of a bipolar person (David Tennant, I’m looking at you) and a wide-eyed dreamer. Whatever his face however, the Doctor always believes in the values of the Enlightenment.

The show has some great pedigree with British Humanism as a movement, as well. Douglas Adams, the legendary writer and ardent humanist, was one of the show’s most influential scriptwriters. It was he who introduced the show’s former leading lady, Lalla Ward, to scientist and BHA Vice-President Richard Dawkins at a party in 1992, with BHA Distinguished Supporter Stephen Fry looking on. The pair would later marry. Professor Dawkins would himself become one of the show’s many scientist cameos, which have included Distinguished Supporter Professor Brian Cox.

The programme’s showrunners have also tended to be socially conscious atheists. When the show was brought back from cancellation in 2005, Russell T Davies didn’t shy away from expressing his opinion of religion. The second episode after its revival features the joke that “weapons, teleportation and religion” are banned aboard a fictional satellite. For its season finale that same year, Davies clearly asked himself what could make a Dalek scarier, given that they were already pitiless aliens bent on racial purity. His answer made terrifyingly good sense:  religion.

Steven Moffat has taken this theme further. All delivered in absurdist good humour, he shows that in the distant future, ‘the Church’ has become a military institution which patrols the galaxy. It is an organisation of superstitious cowards with guns, fearful of its so-called ‘Papal Mainframe’. It is also susceptible to manipulation and influence from others in power. To the Doctor, like every religion, this is just one of the absurd things humans do – he loves them for their potential as much as for their naivety. The Doctor exploits the Church’s weaknesses to great effect in A Good Man Goes to War (2011), when the Doctor (played by Matt Smith), who is for the most part a staunch pacifist, must rescue his companion Amy who has been held captive for the duration of her pregnancy.

When religion is portrayed positively, the show stops short of crediting the tenets of belief themselves. In Davies’ 2007 episode Gridlock, the singing of hymns binds people together in despair. But these hymns are not to a God who will save them. These people are singing to themselves. They are coming together as a community. It is the Doctor who saves them, a man of science who burns with moral conviction. Though he is himself sometimes revered as a god, and even presented with Biblical imagery, he knows better than anyone how far this is from the truth. He is someone who lives with the burden of a dark past, and the knowledge of his own frailty – both moral and physical.

In tonight’s fiftieth anniversary, the two most popular Doctors in the show’s history (David Tennant and Matt Smith), who just so happen to be the most recent, will confront this same dark past. With the exception of the young Doctor played by the old William Hartnell who tried to brutally kill a caveman in An Unearthly Child, the show’s premiere story, the Doctor has always married his Enlightenment values to an adjacent set of progressive ethics. But in 2013, the show has introduced a “dark Doctor,” played by John Hurt, who hails from a time in the Doctor’s life when he was forced to fight a war between his own people, the Time Lords, and the Nazi-like Daleks. The Doctor eradicated both species.

This act is so violent, and so contradicts the Doctor’s strict moral code, that he has worked hard to forget this incarnation of himself and make peace with what he did. As stated in its most recent finale episode, The Name of the Doctor, this is a man who broke the vow his name signifies, and has lost the right to call himself the Doctor. Though John Hurt’s ‘Doctor’ is the same essential person and a man of science, he is also also a warrior, one whose valuation of life is subject to a consequentialist philosophy. Not a great deal is known about him, but he would seem to mark a break away from the Doctor’s strict humanist code. He will go head to head with his less morally flexible replacements.

In its fiftieth year, the show is putting its title character’s values at the heart of the action. Let us see if in the next fifty years, the Doctor’s Humanism will win out.

I haven’t read it, but there’s a critical book on the subject (Humanism and Doctor Who: A Critical Study in Science Fiction and Philosophy by David Layton), and a nifty video on this subject did the rounds on YouTube earlier this year, before getting taken down by a copyright claim. If you can find it, it’s got fifty years of the Doctor’s humanist speeches edited together to great effect.

EDIT: Ah, the creator of the video managed to resolve the copyright issue and upload it anew yesterday. Enjoy!

What kind of atheist are you?

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by Mike Flood

At Milton Keynes Humanists’ monthly meetings, we are always pleased to welcome new people, and many come with questions about atheism — “What exactly is an atheist?” “How does atheism differ from agnosticism?” and “How do you define humanism?” So we thought it might be useful to prepare a note to explain these and a host of other terms that one can come across in the media or rationalist, freethinker, skeptic or secular literature.1 We do this with some trepidation because there is as yet no consensus about many of the terms in use and no agreed definitions, indeed many terms incorporate or encompass others.

Basically, an atheist is someone who does not believe in a supreme being or other immaterial things.2 The term appears to have been first used in the 18th Century. A humanist is someone who has a positive approach to life and a strong concern for human welfare, values and dignity (ie “an atheist who cares”).3 Agnosticism is different: it is a statement about knowledge rather than belief — the view that the truth of metaphysical claims regarding theology, an afterlife, or the existence of god is unknown or inherently unknowable. When asked “Do you believe in god?” an agnostic or ‘ignostic’ (see below) would say “I don’t understand the question. How do you define god?”

But there are many different kinds of atheists, and this can be confusing: we find frequent reference in the media to ‘militant atheists’, ‘fundamentalist atheists’ and ‘anti-theists’ — terms sometimes lumped together as ‘new atheists’.4 These labels are invariably scornful and uncomplimentary and are regularly attached to people like Richard Dawkins who actively campaign against religion or religious influence in public life.5 But this is only the tip of the lexicological iceberg: in this paper we’ve explored a number of other (less pejorative) terms.

We start with ‘implicit’ and ‘explicit’ atheism, terms coined in the late 1970s by George Smith. Smith defined ‘implicit atheism’ as “the absence of theistic belief without a conscious rejection of it”, and ‘explicit atheism’ as “the absence of theistic belief due to a conscious rejection of it” — it should be said that many non-believers would not recognize ‘implicit atheism’ as atheism at all, preferring to use terms such as ‘skeptic’ or ‘agnostic’.

Then we have the idea of a ‘passionate atheist’ — “someone who considers God to be their personal enemy”, as distinct from ‘ordinary atheists’ “who do not believe in God” (the distinction was floated by Freeman Dyson in 2006); and Christopher Silver and Thomas Coleman have proposed a different classification after carrying out a survey of non-believers:

  • ‘intellectualatheists/agnostics’ — people who “seek information and intellectual stimulation about atheism” who “like debating and arguing, particularly on popular Internet sites” and are “well-versed in books and articles about religion and atheism, and prone to citing those works frequently”;
  • ‘activists’ — not content with just disbelieving in God, this kind of atheist / agnostic wants to “tell others why they reject religion and why society would be better off if we all did likewise”; they also “tend to be vocal about political causes like gay rights, feminism, the environment and the care of animals”;
  • ‘seeker-agnostics’ — “people who are unsure about the existence of a God but keep an open mind and recognize the limits of human knowledge and experience”;
  • ‘non-theists’ — “people who do not involve themselves with either religion or anti-religion”; and
  • ‘ritual atheists’ — people who don’t believe in God, do not associate with religion, and do not believe in an afterlife, but still “find useful the teachings of some religious traditions.”

Silver and Coleman’s full list also contains ‘anti-theists’, which we have already encountered — people who “regularly speak out against religion and religious beliefs” who “view religion as ignorance and see any individual or institution associated with it as backward and socially detrimental.” The late Christopher Hitchens described himself as ‘anti-theist’ rather than atheist.

Yet another classification was proposed by Rabbi Sherwin Wine in his essay ‘Reflections’:6

  • ‘ontological’ atheism — “a firm denial that there is any creator or manager of the universe” (ontology is the branch of metaphysics dealing with the nature of being);
  • ‘ethical atheism’ — “a firm conviction that, even if there is a creator/manager of the world, he does not run things in accordance with the human moral agenda, rewarding the good and punishing the wicked”;7
  • ‘existential atheism’ — “a nervy assertion that even if there is a God, he has no authority to be the boss of my life”;
  • ‘agnostic atheism’ — “a cautious denial which claims that God’s existence can be neither proven nor disproven, but which ends up with behaviour no different from that of the ontological atheist”;
  • ‘ignostic atheism’ — “another cautious denial, which claims that the word ‘God’ is so confusing that it is meaningless and which translates into the same behaviour as the ontological atheist”;
  • ‘pragmatic atheism’ — “which regards God as irrelevant to ethical and successful living, and which views all discussions about God as a waste of time.” (Pragmatic atheism is also known as ‘practical atheism’ of ‘apatheism’).

And we conclude with ‘positive atheism’, which to some will sound like an oxymoron. Positive atheism — also called ‘strong atheism’ or ‘hard atheism’ — asserts that no deities exist. It contrasts with ‘negative atheism’ (‘weak atheism’ / ‘soft atheism’) which covers all other types of atheism wherein persons “do not believe in the existence of a creator but do not explicitly assert there to be none”.

Some may consider ‘brights’ in the United States as ‘positive atheists’, although technically they represent a rather broader church — the Brights Movement was founded in 2003 to promote “civic understanding and acknowledgment of the naturalistic worldview, which is free of supernatural and mystical elements”.8 But the term has not been widely adopted, not least because many think it suggests that people who profess a ‘naturalistic worldview’ are more intelligent (ie ‘brighter’) than non-naturalists, and this does little to promote tolerance and religious multiculturalism…

Positive atheism appeals to many Humanists because it helps dispel the cold, negative or false image of atheism that is often promulgated by senior clerics or fundamentalist Christians / Muslims. Perhaps the greatest proponent was Goparaju Rao, affectionately known as ‘Gora’. “Atheism is positive”, said Gora, “because the moment faith in god is banished, man’s gaze turns from god to man and he becomes socially conscious.”

Gora propounded the positive atheist position at the inauguration of the First World Atheist Conference which he co-founded in December 1972.9 “The essence of atheism,” he said, “is the freedom of the individual (and) freedom releases the immense potentialities of human imagination, initiative and effort that lay suppressed under theistic faith. The mood of supplication and complaint, inherent in prayers to god and petitions to government, has no place in the atheistic way of life … Atheism liberates humans from all kinds of bondage and restores the lost dignity to the individual to stand on his feet as a free and responsible person.”

Inevitably many (most?) non-believers are uncomfortable with the label ‘atheist’ and would like to do away with the term altogether — as Sam Harris puts it: “We don’t need a word for someone who rejects astrology. We simply do not call people ‘non-astrologers’. All we need are words like ‘reason’ and ‘evidence’ and ‘common sense’ and ‘bullshit’ to put astrologers in their place”. “And so,” he concludes, “it could be with religion”.

1 Rationalists consider science and reason as the best guide for belief and action. Freethinkers are unwilling to accept authority or dogma, especially religious dogma. Skeptics are inclined to question or doubt accepted opinions.Secular denotes attitudes, activities and things that have no religious or spiritual basis, and secularism, strict separation of the state from religious institutions with people of different religions and beliefs being equal before the law.

2 The use of Big G in ‘God’ and little g ‘god’ in this article is entirely deliberate and reflects the use by the original authors.

3 Humanists do not believe in god and prefer the scientific theory of evolution to explain why we are here. We also accept responsibility for our own lives and believe that when we die that is the end; there is no after life.

4 New Atheism is the name given to the ideas promoted by a handful of modern atheist writers who have advocated the view that “religion should not simply be tolerated but should be countered, criticized and exposed by rational argument wherever its influence arises.” The term is commonly associated with Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens, who are collectively known as ‘the Four Horsemen of New Atheism’.

5 Morgan Matthew has pointed out that “It’s rare to walk anywhere in public and not see some religious advertisement every few moments. Imagine if the cause of non-belief were promoted to even one hundredth this degree? Theists would be totally outraged.”

6< In his day Rabbi Wine was a highly controversial figure: not only did he coin the term ‘ignostic’ but he went on to found a number of humanistic organizations in the US, including (in 1969) the Society for Humanistic Judaism— a movement within Judaism that emphasizes secular Jewish culture and Jewish history as sources of Jewish identity rather than belief in God.

7 People who believe in the existence of a supreme being / creator that does not intervene in the universe / people’s affairs are usually referred to as ‘deists’. Some people describe themselves as ‘fideists’ — they see faith as independent of reason and that it is superior at arriving at particular truths. They have faith that there is something larger than human consciousness.

8 The other main aims of the Brights Movement are to create an Internet constituency that will: gain public recognition that persons who the ‘naturalistic worldview’ can bring principled actions to bear on matters of civic importance; and educate society toward accepting the full and equitable civic participation of all such individuals. In principle, the Movement encompasses atheists, agnostics, humanists, skeptics, and members of religious traditions (like Rabbi Wine) who observe the cultural practices without believing literally in a deity. We should add here that there is enormous prejudice and bigotry towards atheists in the USA: indeed studies show that “atheists are arguably more distrusted and despised than any other minority”. They “seem to represent everything about modernity which Americans dislike or fear”.

9 Not to be confused with the ‘World Humanist Congress’, also held every three years, but starting much earlier (in Amsterdam in 1952). The next Congress will be in Oxford in August 2014 and hosted by the British Humanist Association.

Mike Flood is Chair of Milton Keynes Humanists. He works on grassroots development in low-income countries.

Humility and Humanism

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The only wisdom we can hope to acquire
Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.

                                                      T.S. Eliot, ‘East Coker’

I think it can rightly be claimed that the humanist movement essentially represents a revolt against certitude.  For the early man, in the face of mysterious happenings, unexplained phenomena and hidden dangers, the quest for certitude was a basic psychological necessity – essential for survival.  In our times the growth of scientific knowledge has changed all that.  Mystery and dread of the kind that the primitive man faced have been taken out of our everyday lives; but the habit of assertive certitude, and its offshoots, authoritarianism and intolerance, remain.  Where this habit has survived almost intact is among the followers of traditional religions, but others are not immune to it. Not even Humanists.

Narsingh Narain wrote: “It seems to us that the most objectionable feature common to all religions is not supernaturalism but authoritarianism, that is, the attachment of finality and infallibility to their teachings.  The latter’s ancestry is not traceable to the primitive man’s personification of the forces of nature, but to the formation of an authority-accepting centre in the human mind, as part of the mechanism of psychosocial evolution, and its subsequent exploitation alike by rulers, priests and others.  This authoritarianism is the more harmful and dangerous as it has not been confined to the religions; its influence has been much more pervasive — authoritarianism and its offshoots, dogmatism and fanaticism, are to be found everywhere in the world today, and we feel that the primary function of Humanism is to help in the transition from an authoritarian to a non-authoritarian society in all spheres of life” (emphasis added).

One distinctive feature of Humanism is its emphasis on the tentative nature of all knowledge.  As Clive Bell said: “Only reason can convince us of those three fundamental truths without a recognition of which there can be no effective liberty: that what we believe is not necessarily true; that what we like is not necessarily good; and that all questions are open.”

This is intellectual humility; and it is an indispensable part of the Humanist outlook.  On the other hand, we have the ‘true believer’.  “The true believer”, Arthur Koestler said, “moves in a vicious circle inside his closed system: he can prove to his satisfaction everything that he believes, and he believes everything he can prove.”  For the true believer anyone who holds a different belief is by definition wrong, deluded.  It has to be admitted that this attitude can be found among traditional religionists as well as Humanists and atheists. “This glow of conviction”, says Michael Ruse “is directly antithetical to humanism in the more generous sense, but it dogs ‘Humanism’.”  Thus, he adds, “One finds the enthusiasm of the true believer, and this encourages a set of unnerving attributes: intolerance, hero-worship, moral certainty and the self-righteous condemnation of unbelievers” (emphasis added).

Don Evans says:

“As with religious and secular humanism, there seem to be two mind sets in approaching and understanding of religion: (1) religion is an intrinsic part of human nature and can no more be expunged from that nature than sexual desire or the need for society, and (2) religion is an unnatural imposition on human nature which should be dispensed with.

“Humanists today are far from resolving this conflict of approaches, although it is possible that further developments in psychology and anthropology may shift the balance one way or the other. Humanists in the first camp, whether religious or secular, are far more tolerant of religious manifestations generally, and are more concerned with preventing excesses and abuses than with achieving total abandonment of religion. Humanists in the second camp, often considerably more vocal, seem to have a perpetual grudge against anything religious and seem to be in a constant state of warfare against any and all signs of religious sentiment.”

There are indications that “Humanists in the second camp” are gaining ground. They see religion as an unmitigated evil.   Christopher Hitchens says: “Religion looks forward to the destruction of the world…. ” and goes on: “It comes from the bawling and fearful infancy of our species, and is a babyish attempt to meet our inescapable demand for knowledge (as well as for comfort, reassurance, and other infantile needs). Today the least educated of my children knows much more about the natural order than any of the founders of religion.” This kind of strident humanism provokes a response in kind. According to R Joseph Hoffmann: “… by the early years of the twenty-first century movement humanism gave birth to a more uncompromising form of radical secularism in the form of the new atheism with its anti-God and oddly Orwellian postulate: All religion is evil. Some religions are more evil than others. Before God can be disbelieved in, as Christopher Hitchens argued in God is Not Great, he has to be roused from his slumber, bound, tried, and humiliated for his atrocities. If he is not available, his avatar, the Catholic Church, will do.

“Movement humanism as it has evolved is not really humanism. Or rather, it is a kind of parody of humanism. A better name for it would be Not-Godism. It’s what you get when you knock at the heavenly gate and no one is home.”           

Walter Lippmann was undoubtedly right when he said: “In the great moral systems and the great religions of mankind are embedded the record of how men have dealt with destiny, and only the thoughtless will argue that that record is obsolete and insignificant.” Humanism must not cast itself thoughtlessly in the role of an enemy of religion.  It is a successor of religion; and has, in fact, been born of what Lippmann has called the “higher religions”.  The real enemy of Humanism is a dogmatic and aggressive approach to beliefs.

Rethinking aims and strategies

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Vir Narain: The new atheists border on dogmatism. Pictures: Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett at the 2012 Global Atheist Conference.

Are the ‘new atheists’ undermining the international Humanist movement? Pictured: Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett at the 2012 Global Atheist Conference.

 

Humanists, secularists and rationalists everywhere are becoming increasingly concerned – even alarmed – at the role being played by traditional religions the world over in promoting instability and violence.  Not long ago traditional religions seemed like an anachronism that would fade away with the growth of science and rationality.  That has not happened.  Science, as knowledge of the physical world, has hardly had any effect on the mindsets of millions of ordinary people.  On the other hand technology, spawned by science, has had a profound effect on the way every individual on this planet lives. Among other things, technology has put enormous destructive power in the hands of individuals and small groups.  Now a small group of fanatics – even an individual – can cause more death and destruction than a whole army could even a hundred years ago.  With the tensions created by increasing migrations and interpenetration of cultures, such groups can pop up anywhere.  In societies which are at the receiving end of these transitions there is an understandable sense of insecurity.  Traditional religion is seen as an evil that has to be combated.

The Amsterdam Declaration of 2002, the official defining statement of World Humanism, states: “Humanism is a response to the widespread demand for an alternative to dogmatic religion.” This is more specific than the Amsterdam Declaration of 1952: “This congress is a response to the wide spread demand for an alternative to the religions which claim to be based on revelation on the one hand, and totalitarian systems on the other.” Religion was not seen as an unmitigated evil, but perhaps as a necessary stage in the evolution of human society which now had to be outgrown. It would not be correct indiscriminately to tar – or gild – all religions with the same brush.  As Narsingh Narain said:  “…an analysis is necessary for a proper understanding of  the complex phenomena which  have been grouped under the name ‘religion’, so that we can build our own organisation on solid foundations and also be able to have a sympathetic understanding of the faiths of other groups.” This sympathetic understanding must, of course, extend to all religions – even to the ones that are most antagonistic to humanist values.

Over the last few years it has become increasingly clear that the objective of providing an alternative to traditional religions has lost its salience for the Humanist Movement.  Other issues and causes, undoubtedly worthy in themselves, have caused attention to be diverted from the main aim. To the extent to which it does engage with traditional religions, Humanism has mainly adopted an attitude of rejection and ridicule.  The “sympathetic understanding” is missing.  If the vast masses of people have to be weaned off their dependence on the myths and divisive dogmas of traditional religions, this sympathetic understanding is indispensible. Humanism has to see itself as a successor to traditional religions, not as an enemy.

Freedom of thought is a prime Humanist value: dogmatism is its very opposite. Some religions are more dogmatic, and therefore more intolerant, than others. These religions, in other words, are more ‘hard’ (dogmatic and intolerant) than others. The Humanist Movement, to achieve its objectives, has to identify the religions which offer the greatest resistance to its efforts to advance Humanist values. For this it is necessary to grade religions according to their ‘hardness’.

At the bottom of the scale would be the ‘softest’ religions – perhaps Jainism and Buddhism.  Above these, there are several major religions whose numerous denominations could occupy different positions on the scale.  The top positions probably go to certain denominations of the three Abrahamic religions. Gore Vidal (who passed away recently) once wrote: “The great unmentionable evil at the centre of our culture is monotheism.”  This is in line with Ralph Peters’ comment: “All monotheist religions have been really good haters. We just take turns.” With 2.2 billion and 1.7 billion respectively, Christianity and Islam have the largest number of adherents in the world.  Certain denominations of these two religions – Catholics in Christianity and Wahhabis in Islam – can fairly be put on top of the list. The Unitarians and Sufis perhaps have a place on the soft end of the scale.

What, one might ask, is the point of this classification?

First: it helps to remind us of our original commitment to provide an alternative to dogmatic religions.

Secondly: It helps to determine our priorities when dealing with various religions.  It helps us to shed the habit of tarring all religions with same brush as typically summed up by Dawkins: “I think there’s something very evil about faith.

Thirdly: having determined our priorities when dealing with various religions, it helps us to strategise better.  One way to strategise is to treat this on the principles of geopolitics, treating the major traditional religions as nation-states. In any case, in the real world, religion (especially the Abrahamic religions on which we have to focus) and geopolitics are inextricably mixed up. Evangelical Christianity and radical Islamism (and perhaps Orthodox Judaism, demographically insignificant but politically powerful) are now in almost open confrontation.  As a recent article in the New Statesman says:  “Puritanical yet wealthy, convinced of their God-given mission to the rest of the world, sure of a divinely inspired history… Saudi Arabia and the United States are surprisingly similar in their mixture of religion, politics and interference in other countries’ affairs. Saudi Arabia has Wahhabi Islam, Middle America has evangelical Christianity. Historically, they hate each other. Yet both see themselves as exponents of the purest version of their faith. Both are suspicious of modernity. Both see no distinction between politics and religion.”

This complicates matters for the Humanist movement considerably.  Whereas one of the main protagonists in this situation, Evangelical Christianity, is an easy target for the Humanist movement, the other major – and arguably more formidable  protagonist: Radical Islam, is almost totally out of reach. (Except possibly in the United Nations, where significant work, ably led by Roy Brown, has been done).  The result is that the Humanist movement, confined to the West, keeps skirmishing with the various Christian denominations – some of them harmless – while it is almost totally absent from the Islamic world. The IHEU has 112 member organisations in 37 countries.  Currently the UN has 192 member states. Only four Islamic states, Nigeria, Egypt, Bangladesh and Pakistan have member-organisations of IHEU.  What their state of health is can only be guessed.  It is perhaps fair to say that the Humanist Movement has mostly been confined to the West.  A cynical friend once remarked that the footprint of the IHEU is more or less the same as that of NATO.  There is no evidence that there is – or indeed can be – any plan to remedy this situation.  However, inexplicably, there are hardly any efforts being made to contain the growing influence of radical Islamic diaspora even within the West.

In recent years, as the depredations of terrorists and fanatics have increased, leading humanists in the West have adopted a more and more hostile attitude towards traditional religions.  If the minds and hearts of traditional religionists have to be won, this is bound to be counterproductive.  Rejection and ridicule have to be replaced with persuasion.  The rise of hardline New Atheism, with its indiscriminate condemnation of all religions, can undermine the efforts of the Humanist movement to achieve its objectives.  According to Michael Ruse: “… there is the nigh-hysterical repudiation of religion. As with religions themselves, the implication is that those who fail to follow the New Atheist line are not just wrong, but morally challenged.”  This itself borders on dogmatism.

The conclusion seems to be that the International Humanist Movement has not made any significant progress towards achieving its basic goals.  Where it is undoubtedly needed most – in the Islamic world – it is practically absent; where it does have a strong presence – in North America and Europe – it has failed to have an impact.  Clearly, we need to rethink our aims and strategies.  We must not allow ourselves to be distracted from our original aim of providing an alternative to dogmatic religions.

As of now, one is reminded of what Matthew Arnold had to say of the atheistic poet Shelley, describing him as  “a beautiful and ineffectual angel, beating in the void his luminous wings in vain.”

Music and humanism

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by Josh Kutchinsky

Music Town by Clint McMahon

In one of his famous lectures for children the musician, polymath and educator, Leonard Bernstein, played an extract from The William Tell overture by Rossini and asked his audience what they thought it was about.  They answered and he responded:

“That’s just what I thought you’d say: cowboys, bandits, horses, the wild west.”

He then told his audience that he hated to disappoint them but that it wasn’t about anything like that, “It’s about notes – E Flats and F sharps. You see, no matter how many times people tell you stories about what music means, forget them. Stories are not what the music means at all. Music is never about anything. Music just is.”

Whilst we may not be able to say what music means we can say what it is that music does? Music is a definer of rhythm and of harmony. It is a unique human exploration of memory, time, and anticipation. Sequences of sound with varying or consistent musical pitches, timbres and intensities excite the brain to expectation and when these are thwarted or gratified, we are teased, lulled or excited. The landscape of sound is changed from the familiar to the exotic, from the safe to the dangerous.

There are other performing arts such as drama and poetry which take place in the present moment and involve the manipulation of expectation but employ the currency of common conversation; words. Maybe language is just one particular sort of music.

Here is a story about the power of music.

Some time ago there was an old man. He was ill and in hospital. He had turned away, with a dumb gesture, the offers of pastoral care from strangers. They were not wanted. Then his granddaughter came to visit. She didn’t know what to say. He stared at her with watery eyes and no one was sure whether there was any recognition. She sat; a small black case beside her chair. Someone suggested she play something.

“What?” she asked

“Anything.”

And so she removed her silvern flute from its compact black case and the bright sound from the metallic tube poured into the room like sunlight through a window on a winter’s day. The grandfather smiled. He recognised the tune. Beyond the slightly open door the sound wafted down the corridor, travelling from the geriatric toward the maternity ward across the way. A mother with a babe in arms drew near and stood by the open door and the door was opened further and she smiled and the old man returned her smile. Music had brokered, in a way that only it can, a human interaction between a long dead composer, a man only a few weeks from death, his granddaughter, an unknown woman and a newborn child of less than a week.

But am I now not doing what I had just said could not be done? Am I not imposing a narrative on the music? Not at all. Stories are often imposed on music. Similarly religious meaning is often imposed on certain stories. Language is never religious. It is just sometimes used by people holding religious beliefs. They can no more rightly claim the language for themselves than can a child capture the sea in a bucket. Music in and of itself is never sacred or secular. It is just music.

Human creativity lies at the heart of Humanism. To attempt fully to apprehend the reality of our existence and thereby imbue it with meaning, music, science and the other humanities all have their part to play (science had always, until quite recently, been included as one of the humanities but under its older name of ‘natural philosophy’).

Music is not only a means of entertainment, distraction and mood enhancement. It is not just a partner to words in opera and musicals, to movement in dance and drama, to TV and films. It is not just a signature tune to momentous events in our lives; our romances, our teenage angst, our formal ceremonies which for many, but not all, help mark life’s moments of transition. It is not just a respite for the world weary. It is also a tool of exploration. Our perceptions of our world our altered by it and it has been compared with pure mathematics in terms of its symbolic power. Music has also been compared to architecture. The structure of music can match for complexity and beauty that of the greatest concert halls and cathedrals.

Music is an amazing human achievement. It requires the orchestration of unnatural sounds, sounds which only humans have manufactured. It calls for skill honed by thousands of hours of practice and endeavour. The evolution of musical instruments themselves is a fascinating story of experimental science, technology and skill. Music is a majestic collaboration often spanning centuries and in a strange way echoes the translation of genetic code into the expression of human existence. Scored music encoded on the page lies dormant, awaiting the moment of performance, of expression. Its awakening takes place against a background of silence and every performance punctuates that stillness with an affirmation of meaning and purpose wrought from a wealth of extraordinary human creativity.

Josh Kutchinsky is an organiser of  the Central London Humanist Group and founder and co-ordinator of Hummay an international humanist support egroup. He is a BHA representative to IHEU. He was a director in a publishing company and co-editor of Merely a Matter of Colour – The Ugandan Asian Anthology. He was also director of a laser show company and produced the first comprehensive exhibition of lasers and their applications at the Science Museum. He writes prose and poetry as well as about science and technology.

Why we must keep campaigning against Collective Worship

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The British Humanist Association leads the national campaign against state-funded ‘faith’ schools, and employs the only dedicated campaigner – Richy Thompson – working on this and related issues such as RE, sex education, creationism and Collective Worship. We’re currently fundraising for our campaigner’s salary, so that we can continue to employ him for another year. Please donate today at http://www.justgiving.com/nofaithschools

We wanted to share with you an email Richy received this past year, highlighting the importance of what Richy does. This mother, as with many others, contacted us about Collective Worship. Currently, every single state school is legally required to have a daily act of collective worship. If the school is not a ‘faith’ school, this must be Christian in character. Here’s what the mother told Richy:

After researching and thinking it over for several years, I informed the Head of my children’s school that I was removing them from collective worship. She said she completely understood and agreed to it. She then went on to ask what religion I was – ‘Is it Christian Science, or something like that?’ I had mentioned in the past that I am a scientist. I replied, ‘No. I am an atheist.’ She appeared a little put out.

At the end of year service, not attended by my children, the school handed out certificates for completion of their first year at school. My daughter was supposed to get hers later at the class picnic. That evening she burst into tears and said that as she had not gone to the service, she did not get her certificate. My daughter is 5 years old. It was then the summer holidays so I had no way of complaining and thought I would see if the next year started well; it could have been an innocent over sight. It is now 3 days into the start of the school year and my children have just told me that they are still going to assembly every day.

Do you have any suggestions as to where I go from here? I do not want an ugly confrontation at school but I also believe that if I was the follower of ANY religion, that this would not be happening to me; I would be protected by law. As I am without a religion, I do not seem to have any rights over my children’s spiritual well being.

Thank you.

This is clearly a very distressing situation, and highlights a common issue with Collective Worship: that opt-outs are inadequate because the child typically has to sit out in the hallway or alone in the library, singled out from their peers, and misses out on school notices or other inclusive aspects such as certificates.

The alternative – not opting out – can all too often be just as bad. Last year, for example, we highlighted a teacher telling an eight-year-old he is a Christian because he celebrates Christmas; the common issue of an evangelical group proselytising in a school; and a girl being traumatised by Collective Worship due to age-inappropriate tales of a god who killed first born children, turned rivers into blood and murdered millions in floods – ultimately being unable to sleep at night.

We need to reform this law, and replace the current legislation with the requirement to hold assemblies inclusive to all children, regardless of religion or belief. This is something we have been working hard on, and we have real plans to develop a wider campaign around this issue, drawing in broader support for reform.

But this requires your support, so that we can continue to employ Richy so that he can work on this issue. Please donate to his salary at http://www.justgiving.com/nofaithschools

 

Humanist Hero: George Eliot, by Richard Norman

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Philosopher Richard Norman on the broad and generous humanism of novelist George Eliot.

George Eliot, as painted by Samuel Laurence, c. 1860

George Eliot, as painted by Samuel Laurence, c. 1860

George Eliot was a great humanist, and a great English novelist – perhaps the greatest. Born in 1819 in Warwickshire, she was in her teens a fervent evangelical Christian but then reacted strongly against it.  She moved to Coventry in 1841 and increasingly mixed in radical and free-thinking circles.  A voracious reader and self-educator, she was persuaded to translate into English two major works of German sceptical thought, David Friedrich Strauss’s The Life of Jesus, which sought to separate the historical Jesus from the supernatural accretions of miracles and myth, and Ludwig Feuerbach’s The Essence of Christianity, which presented religious belief as a human creation and a projection of human qualities.  Her translation of these two books places her at the heart of the nineteenth-century rejection of traditional Christianity.

Several years later, in a letter to friends in 1859, the year of the publication of her first novel Adam Bede, she wrote:

I think I hardly ever spoke to you of the strong hold Evangelical Christianity had on me from the age of fifteen to two and twenty and of the abundant intercourse I had had with earnest people of various religious sects.  When I was at Geneva, I had not yet lost the attitude of antagonism which belongs to the renunciation of any belief – also, I was very unhappy, and in a state of discord and rebellion towards my own lot.  Ten years of experience have wrought great changes in that inward self: I have no longer any antagonism towards any faith in which human sorrow and human longing for purity have expressed themselves; on the contrary, I have a sympathy with it that predominates over all argumentative tendencies.  I have not returned to dogmatic Christianity – to the acceptance of any set of dogmas as a creed, and a superhuman revelation of the Unseen – but I see in it the highest expression of the religious sentiment that has yet found its place in the history of mankind, and I have the profoundest interest in the inward life of sincere Christians in all ages… although my most rooted conviction is, that the immediate object and the proper sphere of all our highest emotions are our struggling fellow-men and this earthly existence.

It is that broad and generous humanism that I admire – one which recognises the impossibility of returning to religious creeds and dogmas but is prepared to sift out what is of value in the religious impulse.

The many and differing faces of Christianity are one of the themes of her novels.  In her greatest novel, Middlemarch, they are represented by the banker Bulstrode, a hypocritical evangelical whose surface piety hides a shameful secret;  the desiccated clergyman-scholar Casaubon, whom Dorothea makes the mistake of marrying; and Mr Farebrother, not really cut out to be a clergyman but with a true and sympathetic heart.

The two central characters of Middlemarch, Dorothea and Lydgate, both start out with high ambitions to do something for their ‘struggling fellow-men’.  Their hopes are frustrated.  At the end of the novel Lydgate, despite being a successful doctor, ‘regarded himself as a failure’ because ‘he had not done what he once meant to do’.  Of Dorothea we are told, in the final paragraph: ‘Her finely-touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were not widely visible.  Her full nature… spent itself in channels which had no great name on earth.  But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive…’  I love that phrase – ‘incalculably diffusive’.  George Eliot recognised that our lives are interwoven, and though we may not know what effect we will have on others, we can trust that by endeavouring to live well we can all make our contribution to ‘our struggling fellow-men and this earthly existence’.


This post is part of  a series written by members, friends and Distinguished Supporters of the British Humanist Association about their own “humanist heroes”.

Richard Norman is Emeritus Professor of Moral Philosophy, founder-member of the Humanist Philosophers’ Group, and a Vice-President of the BHA. His book On Humanism is available from the BHA Amazon store.